The Ward Gets Back Up: Jimmy GriffinAn excerpt from Against the Grain, pp. 233-237by Timothy Bohen
2012
Reprinted with permission.

By the 1980s the Ward had drastically changed from its pre-St.
Lawrence Seaway days. The majority of the manufacturers and
waterfront industries had closed or were significantly downsized; and
the grain scooping industry was doing a fraction of the business it
enjoyed during the heyday; the hustle and bustle along the Buffalo
River, which was a constant since the 1840s, was noticeably
diminished. In 1981, First Ward resident John Baldyga lamented
what the First Ward had become:

It is not a pretty sight or scene. The river is silent, not a ripple in
it. No ships plying this waterway as before. The towering elevators,
Concrete and Superior, [are] silent. No ships docking there anymore.
The only movement, around the elevators now is the pigeons flying in
mass formation or scurrying from one elevator to the other, decorating
them for sure with their droppings.

The Ward was once again in need of some reason to hope as it had one
hundred and thirty years earlier when things looked bleak. In the
late 1840s it was an outsider, Bishop John Timon, who arrived to lift
Ward residents out of their misery; but this time they got one of their
own.

Jimmy Griffin’s story, like so many before him from the
First Ward, begins in humble circumstances. Griffin was born on
June 29, 1929, four months before the start of the Great Depression, an
event that significantly shaped his views on self-reliance.

His
father, Tom, worked hard as a hardware clerk for Beals, McCarthy and
Rogers in the Ward, and in Jimmy’s words, “my dad never made much
money, but he’d take us to Sullivan playground on Sidway Street between
South Park and Mackinaw every day and hit flies.” The Griffin
family home was at 602 South Park Avenue near Hamburg Street, and as a
boy, when not playing baseball, Jimmy hauled bags of potatoes at the
Elk Street Market.

While attending St. Brigid’s elementary
school, he worked part-time at McMahon’s store and hauled Budweiser
kegs at the Elk Street Market during the summers. Jimmy dropped
out of high school to work on the waterfront, returned to complete his
diploma and then fought in the Korean War in the 82nd Airborne as a
paratrooper. At one time he worked for Maritime Milling at
Hopkins and Tifft Streets as a laborer and even scooped grain from
railcars.

Eventually he fell in love with and married a
First Ward woman, Margie McMahon, from Tennessee Street. His
biography essentially mirrors other prominent men from the Ward: he
worked in the mills, worked for the railroads, and operated a saloon:
Hagan’s Tavern.

In an article about First Ward legend and prizefighter Jimmy Slattery,
Griffin shared his four heroes in life: his father [“Rocco” Griffin],
Harry S. Truman, Warren Spahn, and Jimmy Slattery. Of Harry
S. Truman, Griffin said “he made a lot of tough decisions and wasn’t
afraid to. He did what he thought was right.” Griffin
also mentioned that if he could meet one famous person in history he
would have liked to meet St. Paul because “he was a warrior. He knew
how to sway people who listened to him.” Griffin also shared some
of his philosophy on life in the Ward when he was describing Slattery:
“They loved Slattery for the way he fought, drank, and took care of the
less fortunate.” Winning, fighting, and leading were three things
that his heroes exhibited and Griffin did too.

In 1961, the scrappy former tavern owner won a seat in the Buffalo
Common Council representing the Ellicott District, and five years later
won higher office in the New York State Senate. Griffin had great
political instincts, a knack for connecting with people, and a gift for
remembering names and faces.

Griffin, however, lacked one
important ingredient for establishing a base to run for higher office:
the ability to give jobs to loyal deputies. The feisty Griffin
sparred with Peter Crotty and Joe Crangle, two of the leading
Democratic leaders in Buffalo, and therefore they “starved him out of
any political patronage jobs.”

The upstart Griffin
befriended Jimmy McMahon, who held a powerful position at the Bethlehem
Steel Company, and through McMahon’s assistance, Griffin was able to
get forty to fifty First Ward friends jobs at the steel mill.
Jimmy Griffin now had the base of supporters he needed to run a
successful citywide campaign.

In 1977, after meeting with his top advisors at Kennedy’s Tavern on
Katherine Street in the Ward, Griffin was convinced he had to run for
mayor of Buffalo, a feat that no Irish Catholic had yet
accomplished. However, the Democratic leadership in Buffalo had
decided on an African-American candidate, Arthur Eve, so it appeared
Griffin would have to wait a little longer. But the former
infantry platoon leader thought he should lead Buffalo, so he ran on
the Conservative Party line instead. In a heated campaign,
Griffin carried the Irish vote in South Buffalo and also convinced a
sizable group of Poles on the East Side, many of whom were Democrats,
that their interests were best served by him and not Arthur Eve.
In a three-way race, Griffin beat the favored Democratic candidate
Arthur Eve and then proceeded to win four consecutive mayoral terms;
his sixteen years as Buffalo’s mayor stands as a local record.

Jimmy’s common sense management philosophy as mayor was most likely
shaped by his upbringing in the Ward. Griffin once said:

I campaigned on very simple ideas. Everybody said, “You’ve got a simple
solution to everything.” Well, that’s the way life is. You can’t make
it complex. If the people in a neighborhood say that they want a stop
sign, that stop sign goes up. I don’t wait for surveys. If
I think there should be more policemen on the streets, I don’t wait for
FBI statistics. I believe in the simple way of doing things. More
than experts, we need people with common sense in government.

An example of this management style was best remembered in his famous
decree during the Blizzard of 1985 when he urged Buffalonians to: “Stay
home. Enjoy the family. Watch Channel 7, and get a six-pack.”

Griffin’s gut-instinct leadership served him well in many areas, but
some of Buffalo’s problems were more complex and required input from
other elected officials and community leaders; Griffin often refused to
include them in the decision-making and historians will have to judge
whether that hurt or helped the city.

Griffin created many admirers as well as detractors throughout his
years as mayor. The Irish from South Buffalo and the First Ward
mostly loved him. In fact, after his first term 65% of the
citizens of Buffalo felt that he was doing a good or excellent job in
handling the city. His administration and staff were loaded
with his trusted advisors from the Irish section of the city, both from
the First Ward and South Buffalo, such as his long-time friend John
“Scanoots” Scanlon, Dave and James Comerford, Rick Donovan, Donald
“Bughead” Smith, Stan “Boots” Buczkowski, George “Ortsie” Gould, John
B. Myers and Danny Bohen. However, while many of the Irish loved
him, there was a definite tension between Jimmy and the
African-American leaders of Buffalo.

The First Ward, which had been badly battered by lost industries in the
1960s and 1970s, benefited from the Griffin administration’s renewed
focus on this section of the city. In fact, from 1978 to 1990,
the Griffin administration was busy giving out 221 homeowner block
grant loans worth $1.26 million in the First Ward. Other city
funds that went to the Ward included $276,239 for free paint and
rehabilitation loans and over $585,000 in commercial loans. With
the help of the Housing Trust Fund, the city also built ten new homes
in the area. Griffin did not forget where he came from or those
who helped him get to Buffalo’s top elected office.

Yet, despite
Griffin’s revitalization efforts, he couldn’t slow the closing of
nearby plants and mills, which were the lifeblood of jobs for those in
the Ward. Pillsbury closed the Great Northern Elevator in 1981,
and two years later the closing of the Bethlehem Steel plant dealt a
devastating blow to the region. This was followed by the closing
of Republic Steel a year later. All three of these businesses
employed thousands of Western New Yorkers and hundreds from the First
Ward.

Even with the plant closings and lost jobs, there was still a real
sense of hope in the Ward during the Griffin years. In 1990, a
Buffalo journalist from Business First predicted that as a result of
the business development occurring in the downtown area, the Ward
“stands on the verge of economic rebirth.” Developer Carl
Paladino was another optimist and in 1987, despite the high
unemployment in the Ward, he developed a 17,000 square foot retail
plaza at Louisiana Street and South Park Avenue to address the limited
retail opportunities in the Ward. Evidence that the Ward was
stabilizing during the Griffin years was seen in the parish
enrollments. Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Pets) and St. Valentines
were still growing in terms of the number of families. Pets grew
from 250 families in 1982 to 340 in 1990, and St. Valentines increased
from 200 families in 1985 to 250 in 1990.

However, while there was optimism and energy in the Ward, another part
of the city wasn’t so lucky. The East Side of Buffalo, with its
predominantly African-American population, deteriorated rapidly during
the 1970s and 1980s. Much of this decline was due to the closing
of manufacturing plants and the loss of countless jobs in the
blue-collar East Side.

But some of Griffin’s opponents blamed him
and cited the deterioration of race relations in Buffalo under his
tenure as one of his failures. It is true that Griffin
continually sparred with Councilman James Pitts, one of the city’s
leading African-American leaders; Griffin even challenged him to a
fistfight after a nasty argument. The Griffin administration was
also criticized for its minority-hiring track record, and the poor
allocation of neighborhood revitalization funds to James Pitts’s
Ellicott district. At the start of his third term as Mayor
of Buffalo, the feisty Griffin even purged African Americans from the
top spots in his administration and replaced them with two Puerto
Ricans.

The mayor from the Ward refused to close City Hall on Martin Luther
King’s birthday because he felt the city workers already had too many
days off. Griffin was personally opposed to the forced
busing that was imposed by Judge John Curtin in 1981 and he took the
matter to court, but Curtin’s decision was upheld. Griffin also
petitioned the federal courts to end the minority hiring quotas in the
public schools. One African-American social worker was quoted in
1981 as saying: “He’s [Griffin] not perceived as being sympathetic to
the black community. But I don’t think anybody hates him or
anything like that.” Perhaps his animosity toward African
Americans, which was shared by others who grew up in the Ward, stemmed
from the century-long distrust between the two groups.

Griffin accomplished much during his tenure as mayor despite the
declining population, loss of Buffalo’s manufacturing base, and lower
tax revenue. Major projects included the gentrification of the
Theatre District on Main Street and the restoration of the historic
Market Arcade building. Many voters thought his greatest
accomplishment was on the waterfront where he led the development of
housing and commercial buildings on the Erie Basin Marina.

Griffin also led the effort to bring a Triple-A baseball team back to
the city with the hopes of eventually bringing a major league
team. To accomplish this, he spearheaded efforts to secure funds
to build Pilot Field, arguably the finest minor league baseball stadium
in the country in 1988.

During his tenure, a metro rail
line was built from downtown to the University at Buffalo on Main
Street, and over 1,000 affordable homes were constructed.

Griffin, a product of the Great Depression, also believed in fiscal
discipline and was able to pay off the city’s $19 million deficit after
only five years in office.

Griffin has been described as a feisty, “dukes-up” Irishman. In
his 1978 inaugural address Griffin exclaimed, “I promise I won’t let
you down.” For many Buffalonians, especially those in South
Buffalo and for those with downtown interests, Griffin did not
disappoint. Griffin’s legacy with downtown Buffalo, the
waterfront, the baseball stadium, the Theatre District, mass transit,
and thousands of affordable houses has and will benefit generations of
Buffalonians to come.

At Griffin’s farewell party in 1993, the
Buffalo developer Frank Ciminelli said, “Here’s a guy who broke his
neck for this city, and people just don’t realize it. There were
deals I never would have touched if it wasn’t for him. It was
always ‘Aw c’mon Frank. The city needs it.’” As one
Buffalo News columnist stated after Jimmy’s death, “[Jimmy Griffin]
might rank as the most dominant political figure of modern Buffalo.”